The Solace of Hell
by missmorganpryce
Summary: Wesley won't leave his Hell


STORY TITLE: The Solace of Hell AUTHOR: missmorganpryce itzbleu@yahoo.com CLASSIFICATION: Wesley, Wesley/ Fred, Wesley/Lilah, Wesley/Darla, Wesley/Gunn interaction RATING: PG-13 WARNINGS: character death, AR, Spoilers for "A Hole in the World" and "Shells" DISCLAIMER: All hail Joss, all throw tomatoes at the WB. SUMMARY: Wesley won't leave his Hell. AUTHOR'S NOTE: I started this story around an hour and a half after I saw "A Hole in the World" and this is my continuation. This story is heavily influenced by "Dante's Inferno." Antenora is in the 9th circle, reserved for the betrayers of humanity, Malebolge is the 8th circle.  
  
~ Just two days ago she had been cuddling in his arms, her breath warm against his bare chest.  
  
"It's taken forever for us to get together," Fred had giggled.  
  
"But now we have forever," he had murmured to her, stroking her long hair.  
  
"That sounds nice," she had whispered back. "Make love to me, Wesley."  
  
And he had, for hours that night, for the months they had been with different lovers. He had thought they had had the rest of their lives ahead of them.  
  
But they had not. He sits on her bed again, and holds her cold body close. Cruel fate has ripped him from his love once more. It seems to be his destiny, to care deeply for a woman, then to witness her death.  
  
She had not stayed dead. Something had risen in her body and taken over. Something that had wanted to take over the world. And when he killed her, letting her die for the second time, some of him died too.  
  
He carries her body back to her apartment and lays her on the bed. He cannot quell his tears. He gut-wrenchingly sobs on her lifeless shoulder and rocks her. And when he can weep no longer, he cries guttural sounds. When he has worn himself out to the point of exhaustion, he passes on out Fred's bed, still holding her.  
  
When he wakes up, it is Lilah who holds him.  
  
~  
  
In the beginning, apprehensive and nervous, he explores his new surroundings. They are physically very much like his old ones, but filled with very different people. They are cheerless and pain filled. They are all dead. They walk around with deathmarks on their bodies; a bullet shot in the head, rope burns around their necks, dismembered body parts, slit wrists. He becomes very proficient at guessing the cause of death.  
  
The people of his world struggle for survival and thrive, but here they are resigned and listless; they are trapped here forevermore and have no hope. It is quite depressing. But what else can he expect from Hell?  
  
He roams around in the circles, exploring the pouches of the dismal; the nine circles. Dante hadn't made it up. The gluttonous, the avaricious, the flatterers, the lustful, the traitors, they all dwell here.  
  
Wolfram and Hart is in the midst of the ninth circle, the deepest circle.  
  
"Each city has its own set of circles," Lilah had chirped as she had walked him down the labyrinth of hallways. "They tell me San Francisco's got a lovely view of the Styx Bay, but I haven't been there yet. They don't give us vacation breaks anymore."  
  
He had not answered.  
  
But Lilah had ignored his silence and hustled him briskly down to meet some supervisor. "You need to protect yourself," she'd pleaded with him. "Just make a little deal with them, nothing too serious. You don't have to sell your soul, probably just research."  
  
That had jolted him out of his wordlessness. "Why?"  
  
"Because if you don't, they'll chase and torment and rip you apart until they own you. Better to secure a position now. Wes- " she had stopped and taken his face into her hands. "I'm not trying to recruit you now, just protect you. Listen to me. You've been here for weeks now. If you intend to stay here for an indefinite period of time, do this. It's not safe."  
  
He had stared into her eyes and noted the concern on her face. Then he had made a decision, reached for her and lightly kissed her.  
  
And the contract he had signed in blood had been minimal and beneficial; he was required to research important texts for Wolfram and Hart, and as a bonus he had access to their entire database.  
  
It is a great deal with the devil and Wesley has never regretted it.  
  
~  
  
He finds his solace in the books, the dust covered pages that reveal the mysteries of the world to him. The breadth of the available knowledge, plus the limitless time span, draw him from his chrysalis and he is born again into that world of words. He spends hours upon hours sitting motionless except to turn a page or adjust his glasses. The world makes sense, and there is less pain then, because when he is focused on the ancient letters, he can almost forget why he came here, why he stays here, why he lives among the dead and why he cannot go back. He can almost forget her...  
  
But Wesley does not like to think about these things often.  
  
There is less pain in Lilah's arms as well. When he isn't researching or exploring, he is with her, whether physically or in his thoughts. She is as comforting as his books; oddly, enough, not because he forgets, but because he remembers. Just as long ago he could not have Fred, he cannot have her now.  
  
But even though his love is for Fred, there is something for Lilah too. Lying in bed with hellish shadows dancing in the corners, she wards off the nightmares and the chill of Antenora.  
  
She is there for him, despite her own suffering and damnation, and for this he is grateful. The years go by quickly, but she never goes anywhere.  
  
But many times Lilah is unable to be there, not of her own fault, but because of her servitude that Wesley unknowingly set in motion. It is his fault, his fault and the guilt weighs on him, along with the many other things that have pulled him down.  
  
This is how Wesley spends his first years in Hell, drowning in guilt and distress. In monotony and death, he researches and sleeps. Nothing changes, the pain goes on, until one day something different happens.  
  
~  
  
Time is meaningless here. Wesley wakes up every morning, drinks his too- bitter coffee, makes his rounds, reads his books, unwinds at night with Lilah, and wakes up the next day to repeat the same damn monotonous routine.  
  
People continue to wake up every morning and reenact their duties. But they are in pain, so much pain, both physically and psychologically. Hell is a cheap facsimile of the world, with unreal buildings and cars and garbage. There are businesses in skyscrapers, bums in doorways, pedestrians crossing streets.  
  
He sees a man every day, who is forever destined to be in a fatal, very painful car crash, on the corner of Sunset and Melrose. He sees him writhing in death pangs at precisely six o'clock every evening. In the beginning, he reacted in horror, but now he casually picks his way across the wreck to cross the street.  
  
Today the police cars manage to block off the rest of the street. Usually he turns left and crosses through another street, a routine he established years ago and has kept to faithfully, but today, for no reason at all, he decides to change that. He is feeling unusually bold, challenging the repetition of Hell for the first time in years and changing something, although insignificant. So he ducks into a dark alley to continue walking and stumbles over a body lying on the floor. But he continues to walk. He is accustomed to corpses on the ground.  
  
The body on the floor lifts its head and croaks out some unintelligible words. It pushes aside a ragged mane of blonde hair to reveal its face. Even in the dark, he recognizes her.  
  
"Darla?" he breathes. "Is that you?"  
  
"I don't know," comes a muffled murmur. She lifts her head to look at him. "Is that me?"  
  
Definitely Darla. No one else had a voice like hers. Haunting, sultry, low with seduction- her voice still haunted his dreams. She might have been the enemy, but her voice had been an alluring friend.  
  
What a pitiful figure she makes, lying scrawny and demented on the dirty street. Once she had indeed been a master among her kind. No more; Hell puts everyone on the same level.  
  
Darla has been dead for approximately two years, which is roughly equal to four hundred years in Hell, Wesley figures. Well, if he'd been punished for that many years he wouldn't remember his name either.  
  
"I tried to run away, but I got lost," whimpers Darla. "I've been here forever, I've died so many times..." Her voice trails off and she stares into his face. "What did you call me, what did you say?"  
  
"You're Darla, you're- " From deep down in his soul, he feels long-dead emotions rise. She is so pitiable...  
  
But he pushes away the emotions and starts to walk away. He cannot survive here if he feels sorry for every poor creature in the alleys. And she was a monstrous thing in life, she deserves to suffer.  
  
Darla cries out again and Wesley keeps on walking, walking till her desperate cries fade away along with the setting sun. He's not going to be doing anything different again. He'll turn left on that street and walk in the open, not duck into alleys. Change causes his heart to beat again, and emotions to stir in his breast.  
  
Change causes too much pain.  
  
~  
  
But despite his best intentions, he makes another change. His heart has melted from the encounter with Darla, and memories have come flooding in.  
  
Sometimes when he sees a tall, slender woman with brown hair his pulse quickens. But always when she turns around he is disappointed by the unfamiliar face. Nights that had previously been spent alone with Lilah now consisted of a threesome; themselves and the ghost of the past.  
  
He knows that Lilah realizes what's going on, knows that she is not the only one in his arms, and he imagines her pain. This is not the first time he's slipped and called out Fred's name. This is not the first time he's seen Lilah's sad face before she slips on her mask.  
  
And he is truly sorry. But he can't forget her...  
  
Bitter yearning for Fred drives him to make his next change. Usually he enters the Wolfram and Hart building, proceeds to his office and stays there until he leaves by the same route.  
  
Today he walks to the elevator, steps in and descends to the laboratory, which had been her second home.  
  
Although it is filled with bustling men and women in blood splattered lab coats, there is an eerie silence. Wesley watches from the doorway, feeling the pain rise in his gut as he looks over the room his lover had fit into so well.  
  
He looks at the people and absently determines their causes of death. One has raw red burns all over her legs, possibly from a fire but more likely chemicals. A second is missing four fingers and half of the skin from his scalp; there's another guy with his head chopped off just like Lilah's, a woman whose deteriorating flesh marks her as a zombie, and- Wesley's heart stops and he stares at the man who has just turned away from a table. The man pulls off his white coat and reveals a blue Hawaiian shirt peppered with bullet holes. Busy with a bunch of papers, he walks towards the door and bangs into Wesley, who is too startled too move.  
  
The man looks up from his papers and meets his gaze.  
  
"Well, I was expecting you at some point. Looks like you made it here too, huh?" asks Knox.  
  
Wesley manages to choke out a word. "You- "  
  
"Not so bad here, with the super duper lab just like I used to have, great accomplishments every so often... You sort of did me a favor, I invented a great gadget last week."  
  
"Out of all the people I've seen here, you deserve to be here the most," he spits back.  
  
Knox shrugs. "It's all worth it for Illyria."  
  
Illyria. The parasitical scum that had taken over Fred, caused her so much pain, had her die in his arms... It had been standing next to Knox when Wesley had pulled out his gun, aimed at Knox and fired until he had been out of bullets. Just standing there and staring in fascination...  
  
"It's dead," snapped Wesley.  
  
Knox's false cheer immediately vanishes.  
  
"No, it's got major magic protection, it can't just be killed that easily."  
  
"Oh yes it can," says Wesley. When it had opened the portal to it's temple and found it's army gone, he had followed. While it had sat there unprotected and in shock, he had taken his gun and pressed it against its temples. He had stood there for timeless seconds with the gun in his hand. Illyria had felt the cool metal and slowly had started to turn its head towards him, and before he could lose his resolve and falter at the sight of Fred's face- he pulled the trigger.  
  
Blue gunk had sprayed everywhere and Fred's body had collapsed on the floor. He'd collapsed as well, tears running down his cheeks. There had been no more chance for Fred to return then; her soul, her body and his hope had been destroyed. There had been nothing left.  
  
Now Knox wears the same look on his face as he must have had on at the time of the deed; broken, shocked and pathetic.  
  
"So your sacrifice was in vain," says Wesley softly. His lips curl up in a frightening smile and he chuckles harshly. "You killed her for nothing."  
  
Knox is ashen faced, and disbelieving. "No," he whispers. "It's not true, it can't be..."  
  
Wesley walks out of the laboratory, away from Knox's growing horror. Knox had been living on his hopes of Illyria's success, the fact that he had helped start something great that would last forever- those hopes were smashed now. Knox had nothing left. If he hadn't been in Hell before, he would be in it now.  
  
Wesley is glad to have caused such a magnitude of suffering.  
  
~  
  
Meeting Knox here has changed things even more for Wesley. He is no longer content to stay in his shell and routine. Roused out of his awkward complacency, he knows there are things he must do here.  
  
This time, he hunts down a list of lawyers that work for the firm and scans for one particular name. Sadly enough, he finds it.  
  
Charles Gunn's office is on the fifth floor by a window overlooking the city of smog and flashing lights. Wesley takes a deep breath before walking through the open door and beholding the man sitting at the desk.  
  
Gunn merely looks up, unsurprised.  
  
"I thought I caught a glimpse of you here years ago," says Gunn slowly. "What's up?"  
  
Wesley is taken aback by Gunn's tone of voice and demeanor. Gunn has every right to leap up and slam him against the wall, but he is speaking to him like a friend.  
  
A friend. What kind of friend would keep back vital information that might have saved Fred? And what kind of friend would stab a man who had once been his best friend in the gut and leave him on the floor dying?  
  
"Charles, I'm so sorry," Wesley whispers.  
  
The passing of the years has not dulled the memories. He had accosted Gunn in the lab of Knox's accomplice with a rifle. He had let Gunn tell his story and think it might be all right. Then Wesley had picked up a scalpel and shoved it deep into the man's gut. He had left him dying on the cold tile floor, with wide eyes of terror, that Wesley had totally lost his mind and turned on him.  
  
It has gotten darker outside and he cannot see Gunn clearly in the shadows. He knows there is a stab mark below Gunn's heart, by his hand.  
  
"I didn't mean- I can't- I- Oh my god I sent you to Hell. You're in Hell," he manages to say.  
  
Gunn evenly stares at him, with a tinge of sadness.  
  
"So are you."  
  
~  
  
The second time he meets Darla is completely by accident, just as it was the first time. He brazenly takes a different route to work, and ends up being chased by a demon into another dark alley. He stumbles over a body, and discovers it is she.  
  
Darla whimpers incoherently and clutches her rags closely.  
  
"Darla?" whispers Wesley.  
  
Darla stares blankly into his eyes and tries to hide in the corner.  
  
But this time Wesley does not walk away from her. Instead, he scoops up her weightless body and carries her away with him.  
  
He takes her to one of the many deserted tenements on the outskirts of town. There he sets her up in a room and brings her some clothes and food. Then he hurries to work. He is late for work the first time in decades.  
  
He spends the day worrying about Darla and hoping that she has the sense to stay where he took her. For the first time he cannot concentrate on his books. They do not bring him the solace they once did. He leaves early, ignoring the surprised faces of his assistants.  
  
Darla is still at the apartment, crouched in a dark corner. Half of the food he brought is missing. He attempts to approach her, but he backs away when he hears her cries of fear.  
  
Crouching a few feet away he starts to talk to her.  
  
"Darla, it's Wesley. Do you remember me at all?"  
  
Darla wraps her arms around herself and rocks.  
  
"No, no it's bad and it's happening again...No, no it's good...Where are they?"  
  
He tries to jog her memory with some other names.  
  
"Do you remember Angel?"  
  
At the sound of Angel's name she jerks her head up and snarls at him.  
  
"He left me! And now I'm here," she snaps, sounding much saner. "Where is he?"  
  
"He's not here, Darla, we're in Hell."  
  
"Again?" whines Darla. Abruptly she blinks and looks at him again. "No one talks to me. You aren't talking to me either."  
  
"I'm really here. I'm not a figment of your imagination."  
  
Wesley reaches out and grabs her arm. "Feel me? I'm here."  
  
Darla tentatively reaches out and rubs his course cheek.  
  
"Yes, maybe you're here. Maybe," she whispers to herself.  
  
After a few minutes of persuading, Darla slowly extracts herself from the corner and joins him on the couch.  
  
"How did you get here?" asks Wesley.  
  
Darla shrugs and reaches out to explore the contours of his face. She is obviously desperate for human contact, despite her in cowering in corners.  
  
But then there is a hysterical scream from outside and Darla runs back to the darkness.  
  
Wesley sighs. This will take a while.  
  
~  
  
Wesley enters his apartment after a long day. Today is the tenth time he has been extremely late to work, and the superiors are beginning to take notice.  
  
Lilah is sitting on the bed with a predatory look in her eyes. He expects her to pounce on him and drag him down to the bed, the way she usually does. But before she can get her arms around his neck, he pushes her away.  
  
"Sorry, Lilah, I've had a really hard day."  
  
Lilah pulls away from him and studies his face.  
  
"I'll bet," she says coolly. He pulls off his shirt and tosses it to the floor while Lilah watches, then slips under the covers. He awkwardly moves to kiss Lilah goodnight on the cheek, but she pulls away from him.  
  
Wesley lies back and asks, "Does it really offend you that much if I don't want to sleep with you tonight?"  
  
"A really hard day," repeats Lilah.  
  
"Yes," he says. "A really hard day."  
  
"How hard could it have been if you weren't at the office for half of the day?"  
  
There is silence as he regards her.  
  
"They want to know," continues Lilah, "what you've been doing with your time. You're breaking your contract. This isn't good, Wes."  
  
He thinks about that for a moment. His contract had stipulated that he appear everyday, for a minimum of seven hours. But Darla had needed him today, and he had succeeded in making real progress with her.  
  
She had remembered his name and recalled his association with Angel. And she had remembered a fragment of her death.  
  
"It was in an alley," she'd confided to him. "And then I kept on waking up in alleys, and it hurt a lot."  
  
Darla was in much better condition now, sometimes even sane. Today she had been aware and of sound mind, peppering him with various questions.  
  
He had answered them as best as he could. Darla had been sitting very close to him. He could almost smell her. And then abruptly, in the middle of the questions, she had reached up and kissed him hard. He hadn't resisted, and the kiss had led to other things...  
  
Staring at Lilah now, he feels horrible. He has been thoughtless of her. The guilt rises in his chest, and he adds it to the pile of other things he feels horrible about.  
  
"Wesley?" says Lilah gently. "Do I want to know why?"  
  
He shakes his head slowly. Lilah sighs and lays her head on his shoulder.  
  
"Don't be late anymore, Wes, ok?"  
  
He nods his head and wraps his arms around her. Lilah gives in to his hug and burrows under the covers with him.  
  
He won't do it again. He'll occasionally go to see Darla and make sure she is fine, but that is all. This won't happen again.  
  
~  
  
"It never happened again," he tells Gunn.  
  
"Can you repeat that please?" asks Gunn.  
  
"I said that Angel never ignored the phone bill again after what happened," says Wesley. He is sitting in Gunn's office, trying to lighten the mood by telling a humorous story. But his attempts fall flat. Gunn cannot concentrate on his words, and constantly asks him to repeat sentences. It is not his fault; the knowledge implant is imperfect here and affects his concentration and comprehension skills. It takes Gunn three times as long as an average person to read a document and makes his work more tedious and drawn-out. Another side effect of Hell.  
  
Gunn thinks about the words for a few seconds and lightly smiles.  
  
"Funny." Then he turns back to the endless stack of papers on his desk and selects a new one.  
  
Wesley sits in silence as Gunn begins to read the new paper. Finally, he gets up and looks over his shoulder.  
  
"Can I help?"  
  
Gunn frowns. "No. You don't know this stuff, and it's my work. If I finish ahead of schedule, they'll just give me more. It's pointless. Wes, I know you feel bad, but get over it."  
  
"Get over it? I killed you and you want me to forget about it?"  
  
"Yeah, just forget it. Not a big thing anymore. And I did deserve it. Fred- "  
  
Wesley interrupts him harshly. "You didn't deserve to die for anything. I am at fault here."  
  
"That why you're here? Punishing yourself?"  
  
Gunn looks at him. "I forgive you. You can leave now, and live a normal life. You don't need to spend what you have left suffering with the damned."  
  
"I don't want to go back. I tried to stay there after she died, I couldn't..."  
  
He had wandered aimlessly for days, in unceasing torment. Fred, the love of his life, the woman he'd spent years yearning for, the lover who had been his other half... was gone. He could not exist without her.  
  
Suicide had been contemplated, but then he had hit upon a better idea. Rather than kill himself and end up in Hell, why not just go there anyway?  
  
The jaguar in the white room had been most gracious and fulfilled his request. He had been transported to Hell, specifically, the Hell Division of Wolfram and Hart, where he had promptly collapsed to the floor, overwhelmed by the pain Hell inflicted just by arriving. When he had woken up, he could not remember what had happened. Thankfully, Lilah had found him and cared for him in his amnesia.  
  
When he had recovered his memory, Lilah had taken him to sign his contract with the company, and the rest was history...  
  
He has voluntarily chosen to be with the dead, and he'll be damned if he is going to change his mind. He tells Gunn this much.  
  
"Whatever," says Gunn. "It's ok to have loved Fred that much, but this is going overboard."  
  
Wesley rises from his seat and leaves the room. The next time he visits, Gunn knows that this conversation topic is forbidden.  
  
~  
  
Even though Wesley had broken out of his routines, he has developed new ones. It is similar to his old one, but with a few changes. On Mondays and Wednesdays, he visits Gunn after work. On Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays he visits with Darla. And on Thursdays and Saturdays he goes to the pits of the Malebolge and fights.  
  
The pits are fiery and Wesley has many burns from it. But in contrast, the offices of Wolfram and Hart are bitter cold. Lilah had mockingly told him that they liked to keep the air conditioning on high. Hell has many different climates.  
  
In the hot sandy pits, he duels with many folk. Sometimes he loses, but after many visits, his winning streak increases.  
  
On this particular day, he is involved in a bloody battle and walks away with the sweat streaming down his bare chest. He passes by a mixed group of demons and humans, all who cower at his approach.  
  
He enjoys the rush of power he gets when he sees them cringe, those pitiful creatures. Once he would have been horrified to feel this, but now he dismisses these thoughts without a backward glance. Most of the time he is like this; cruel, superior, and self-righteous. Only with a select few does he let loose softer feelings; only to his closest companions in Hell.  
  
When he's with one of them, it feels a bit like the old days, when the sky was blue and the grass was green and the world was a happy place. Lilah, Darla and Gunn make Hell a little warmer (or cooler) for him.  
  
He strides away from the pits, pulling on his shirt. Pulling out his cell phone, he checks his voicemail. It seems that they need him back at Wolfram and Hart; they're in the middle of an important translation and they have left him five messages regarding some difficulties while he battled.  
  
So Wesley makes his way back to the firm and smoothes out their tangles. By the time he finishes, it's late, almost time for Lilah to come home. He decides to go wait for her near her office.  
  
He's been waiting for precisely seven minutes before Lilah walks out of her office and sees him.  
  
"Wes, what are you doing here?"  
  
He gallantly offers her his arm and her lips curve up into a small smile.  
  
"I came back to do some work, and I finished about," he checks his watch, "ten minutes ago, so I decided to wait for you so we could go home together for once. Don't worry, I won't make this a habit."  
  
Lilah takes his arm and lays her head on his shoulder for a second.  
  
"As long as you don't make it a habit," she states. "But I have to say, it's nice..."  
  
He never visits Lilah at work. She has expressly forbidden it, claiming that she cannot afford to be distracted from her work, and if her superiors catch him visiting they'll deliberately do their best to keep them apart as much as possible.  
  
They head for the elevator.  
  
"What's with the arm?" asks Lilah, stroking his fingers.  
  
"It's a nice touch, don't you think?" He leans over and brushes his lips against her cheek.  
  
Lilah is silent. She stays silent until the elevator comes and they step in.  
  
"Are you feeling guilty about something?"  
  
Wesley has a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach.  
  
"No," he lies. Damn it, how does she know about the vestiges of guilt in the pit of his stomach? He thinks that he has hidden his emotions adequately. Yes, he does feel guilt as usual.  
  
His vow to stay away from Darla had lasted two weeks, no more. He had worried often about her, and had decided to visit. Darla had been delighted to see him, and once more he had given in to her... He feels the guilt every night with Lilah, after the day spent with Darla, and it hurts a lot. But this is Hell. The additional pain no longer makes a real difference; it's all feels the same to him.  
  
The elevator stops and the doors open. Lilah lets go of his arm and walks out before him. Wesley stares at her retreating form for a few seconds, until Lilah stops and turns around.  
  
"Wes! Come on!"  
  
Her words jerk him out of his preoccupation and he hurries to catch up with her. She gives him a dirty look.  
  
"You don't feel guilty about anything at all? At all?"  
  
~  
  
"Do you love me?" Lilah asks one time after they've had a particularly sweet night together. A bittersweet night, because nothing is too good here.  
  
"Love you?" he murmurs, running a hand down her neck, grazing his fingertips over the ribbon that keeps her head mounted on her neck. "Do I love you?"  
  
He hears Fred's voice in his head again. "Do I love you?" Fred had sobbed, tears sliding down her blotchy face. "I didn't even get to do the whole mushy embarrassing 'I love you' in front of everyone at the office. Neither did you."  
  
"I love you. I've always loved you, even before I knew you," he had responded desperately.  
  
"Why can't I stay?" Fred had wept into his shirt bitterly. "Why?"  
  
And he remembers his delusions after Lilah's death.  
  
"Sorry isn't for people like us," Lilah had whispered in his ear.  
  
"So I won't be sorry," he whispers to his ghosts. "I won't make the same mistake again. Yes, Lilah, yes, I do love you." Whether he truly does or not doesn't matter. For Lilah he has emotions. She is all he has left, the last creature comfort, the only one who can soothe his tormented dreams and he has wronged her so. Even if he doesn't love her, she deserves to hear it.  
  
"And you still love Fred?" asks Lilah.  
  
"Yes," says Wesley honestly.  
  
"And you're in Hell, punishing yourself for her death," Lilah angrily states. "You don't love me, you're just using me to console yourself over her. Still. You always have. But thanks for saying it," she finishes sadly.  
  
Sometimes Wesley hates how well Lilah knows him.  
  
"I-"  
  
"Wesley, you need to get over her death and start living again. How many decades do you need to spend here to make it better? It's been a long time. Go back to the world; it hasn't been too long there."  
  
"No."  
  
"Wes-"  
  
"No. What's your problem? I'm willing to be with you for eternity down here, and that's not good enough?"  
  
"It's good enough for me. But not for you. You can't let a dead lover keep you trapped in suffering."  
  
"I'm not suffering."  
  
"This is Hell, lover."  
  
"I've found my solace. I'm fine," he finishes. A sort of peace of mind he's found; the pain's a relief for him. It reacts with his haunted thoughts and anchors him to whatever reality he's in right now. All of his pain blurs together in a symphony of white noise, and he can focus. If he would go back to the world, it would come back at him, tens of times stronger. He is not going back there.  
  
"No, you just don't have to deal with it here. Denial's not just a river in Egypt," says Lilah sadly.  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
"Amazing. You've found your peace of mind." She laughs bitterly. "Wish I could say the same for the trillions of people here. You always were a glut for punishment."  
  
But she says no more on the topic.  
  
~  
  
"I'm a horrible person," he tells Darla later.  
  
Darla smirks and rubs his hair.  
  
"I could have told you that years ago," she murmurs in his ear. "What makes you especially horrible now?"  
  
Wesley rolls over and sits up. "Do you think I should go back?" he asks.  
  
Darla shrugs. "You can do whatever you want."  
  
"And therein lies the problem."  
  
"How so?"  
  
"She thinks I should go."  
  
"So?"  
  
"Wouldn't that imply that she cares deeply?"  
  
Darla throws the covers off and reaches for him. "Or is this yet another ploy for you to make yourself feel guilty for yet another thing?" She kisses him hard, unrelentingly, until he responds.  
  
Breaking off the kiss, she says, "If you feel so bad about cheating on Lilah, then quit it. Don't come back. You've already saved me from the lowest levels of despair, I don't need you. But," she continues, tracing lines on his chest, "you just keep coming back, don't you?"  
  
He does not look at her. The guilt is heavy, overwhelming, just the way it should be. He is incapable of being faithful to Lilah it seems; lusting over Fred at first, now sleeping with Darla. And she takes it all in stride and never says a word.  
  
"Seriously, Wes, Lilah is not a stupid woman. She definitely knows what you do everyday and obviously accepts it if she never said anything. So what's your problem?"  
  
He's wronged her, and he continues to wrong her every day. But he doesn't want to be alone. What can he say? He's guilty, he's always been guilty, and he's just getting punished some more for it. This is his Hell, this is his choice; this is his life.  
  
"Darla..."  
  
Darla pulls him back down to the bed and nuzzles his neck. And then, unexpectedly, she says to him, "Lilah's right, you know. You should leave."  
  
~  
  
One should be careful with what they say; it may come true. Wesley finds this out the hard way. Lilah, Darla and Gunn's words haunt him as much as Fred's ghost does. Those words have become reality.  
  
He is walking to Wolfram and Hart one foggy morning when it happens. A man dressed in black is standing near the dark bushes, almost blending in with the leaves. Wesley walks right past him without noticing who it is.  
  
A hand grabs his arm and jerks him around.  
  
"Wesley!"  
  
It is Angel. Wesley's mouth goes dry.  
  
"Angel?" he says weakly.  
  
Angel drops his arm.  
  
"I found you. I can't believe it. I found you."  
  
Wesley is in just as much shock as Angel appears to be in. He has not seen Angel for nearly a century and now the vampire is standing right in front of him. Angel must have died, he assumes.  
  
"How did you get here?" he asks, expecting a description of death and doom.  
  
"The same way you got here," says Angel grimly. "The White Room."  
  
Then, abruptly, Angel hits him harshly across the face. The blow is hard enough to knock him to the floor. Angel hits him again, and the sight of Wolfram and Hart employees streaming into the building wavers, then fades away.  
  
~  
  
He wakes up facedown on a tiled floor. A very familiar tile floor, in fact. He's in the Hyperion Hotel. He can hear someone's pacing footsteps behind him; he guesses that it is Angel.  
  
He guesses right. Angel realizes he is awake and jerks him up by the neck.  
  
"So, Wes, great to see you again. What's been up with you, after the killing Gunn and running away to Hell to hide parts?"  
  
Angel throws him on the circular couch in the center of the lobby.  
  
"What do you have to say for yourself?" he yells at Wesley. "What?"  
  
Wesley stares at him evenly and does not bother to respond.  
  
"Should have guessed you were in Hell. I mean, after I found out you weren't in this dimension anymore, it should've been easy to figure out where you'd went. Running back to your bitch, thought you cared about Fred more than that-" Angel does not get to finish his words before Wesley tackles him to the ground.  
  
"Her name is Lilah, if you care to remember. And don't talk about Fred," he hisses at Angel.  
  
"Don't talk about Fred," Angel mimics. "This is all about Fred."  
  
Wesley punches him in the face.  
  
"What, no one in Hell ever talks about her? Isn't Hell a place where you're supposed to suffer?"  
  
"It is."  
  
"Guess you're not suffering enough then if you want to be there voluntarily."  
  
"What the hell do you want with me?" roars Wesley. "If I deserve it so much, why did you get me out?"  
  
It is very stressful here, back in this world. The differences are very obvious; brighter colors, normal temperature, and a sharper focus on things. He does not like it at all.  
  
Angel seems to calm down.  
  
"There's no one left, you know. They're all gone. It took a long time to find you. I'm angry at you. But I'm still looking out for you, Wes. Fred wouldn't have wanted you to be in Hell."  
  
No. Not Fred. Not her, his love the one death he can't deal with. No, he's back here where she died, in this world, a place where there had been hope and possibilities. That made it hurt the most; the possibility that he could've done something. In Hell, everything is set in stone and there is no looking back, no dwelling on past things. There he was ok, there he had one last thing to clutch desperately to, and there he could live and never have to face the real pain...  
  
"I'm not in pain there, I'm fine."  
  
"Yeah right," snorts Angel. "Wes, I know you're still in pain, but you're going to stay here. You aren't going back to Hell-"  
  
That's what Angel might think, but Wesley knows better. He runs up the stairs, hearing Angel in close pursuit, running until he gets to the eighth floor. The window at the hallway is closed and shuttered, but it makes no difference. He rips off the wooden covering and backs up a few feet.  
  
Then he runs as fast as he can and propels himself through the window. The glass shatters and the cuts burn his skin, but only for mere seconds as he plummets to the hard concrete ground.  
  
~  
  
The instant he wakes up he knows he is back in Hell.  
  
"I'm never going back there," he whispers.  
  
"I'm never going back."  
  
~  
  
Finito 


End file.
